so i have an appointment soon with a psychologist i think or some kind if therapist doctor.. and im going to talk to them about my problems and how i want to be home-schooled... do you think that they will help me pursue being home-schooled by talking to my parents and helping me consider it and stuff or do you think theyy will just perscribe me medicine to relax and go to school still

I honestly don't know. It depends on what his personal preconceptions are regarding homeschooling. If he thinks homeschooling is bad, it's probably going to be drugs or regular visits, neither of which will help much. The drugs certainly won't.

One thing you could try doing is calling up a local homeschool group and having someone there talk to your parents. Your parents may feel more comfortable with the idea of homeschooling if they can talk to someone local who has homeschooled and knows what's involved.
http://www.home-school.com/groups/

If the therapy session involves your parents being present, try to shift the conversation to your parents' reasons for being against homeschooling, rather than your reasons for being against public school. If you can address each of those concerns in a rational manner in front of the therapist, it will make your case stronger. It's always a good strategy to put the other side (in this case, your parents) on the defensive rather than having to defend your own position

Last edited by Theodore on Mon Sep 10, 2007 1:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

well i dont think me calling a homeschool group thing to talk to my parents would be a good idea.. they would be pretty mad at me for doing that behind theyre backs.. ill see what happens with the therpist.

My experience with counselors is that they tend to think home schooling will bring out whatever is really wrong with the family or child and make it worse.

I don't know all therapists but the one I took my girl too thought home schooling would make her worse and clearly thought I was bad for her so spending more time with me would make her spiral down further into depression.

After we began to home school, she admitted how much better my daughter was and that I'd been right to go that route rather than with drugs she wanted to prescribe. My daughter's attitude changed literally, overnight from completely depressed to excited and happy.

The problem with psychology in general is that it only fixes symptoms, not the cause, and even in the case of symptoms, there's no clear answer as to the best approach to take.

Some scientists did an interesting experiment where they took one random selection of people and had trained psychologists with 10+ years of experience try to help them, and another random selection of people and had people with 10+ years of experience in totally different fields try to help them. Turns out that the "success" percentages were exactly the same so long as the subjects believed they were being helped by an experienced pyschologist (placebo effect) - the actual methods used didn't really make any difference.

Psychologists are really just the secular equivalent of priests, only not as effective.

Thanks! It was so hard because she (the doc) really pressured me saying she didn't know how to help if I wouldn't put my child on drugs, RIGHT in front of my child. She thought, I suppose, that it would pressure me to do so. Little did she know that I had a kid who hated the idea of drugs.

That was literally one of my darkest days. My child was so unhappy. I had to take her to three doctor appointments that day, meaning I had no time to eat after working that morning. I felt like her despair and unhappiness had taken over my life.

When I got home my husband attacked me with "what have you and the doctor decided without me." I wanted to run away myself. I nearly broke. Instead I explained the attack the doc had prepared, that we weren't friends or on the same page at all and that I never decide things without him.

That attack wasn't like him. It showed how worried and helpless he was feeling too.

We were in a very critical scary situation with our girl. I feared she might run away, attempt suicide or that we might have trouble with the law over truancy.

It felt like our lives were coming apart. I felt like I was coming apart and my marriage might. This remains the toughest time I've ever been through and that is saying a LOT. The other times though the trouble came from outside our family this was inside and it was far more difficult to deal with because we'd never done that before.

And yet, the next day my child changed. She went from depressed to happy, just like that. Due in part to our agreement and in part to getting glasses believe it or not.

The sun came out in our lives again.

I worried that the depression might not be just situational. That it might indeed get worse when she stayed at home. Thankfully that was not the case. She hated her public middle school situtation and she needed to be able to see better. BTW, I had just taken her for an eye check, I swear no more than three months prior!

To hear her laughing and enjoying life again was and still is, all these years later, the greatest gift in the world.

Sorry, to go on like that. I'm still emotional about all this when I think about it again.

I'm glad you shared that. Our kids do have a way of making us EMOTIONAL don't they? And isn't it ironic how being so worried about our children can make us turn on each other? We went through some of those same emotions. I think just from feeling so helpless at the time.

I had a somewhat similiar situation with my son and a doctor and the schools. "He has ADD; put him on this..." Right after I had specifically told the doctor I WAS AGAINST USING DRUGS. He just matter of factly started writing out the prescription as though I had no choice in the matter. Of course, after the school found out he had been "diagnosed" with ADD and I wasn't putting him on anything they pretty much threw up their hands and literally said, "We don't know what to do. We can't help him." My son was miserable too, and I worried about future depression and suicide attempts because I remember very well how it felt to be overwhelmed as a child with no end in sight.

I bet your daughter felt so much better knowing that there are always other options. I know my son sure did! Even I felt better realizing that there are always other options.

I'm so glad for you and your family that everything turned out so well! I love happy endings!!!!

Yes, our school tested my son for ADD after I had told them I wouldn't let them! He did not test positive for it. So ha!

His k-5 teacher had three of her own kids on drugs for it. She told EVERY parent of a male child to A) hold that child back and B) put them on drugs!

At the time I spoke of above, my girl was diagnosed with depression and ADD but I do not believe she had ADD. I refused drugs. In fact, the first thing I told the doc was don't ever talk to me about drugs due to problems I'd seen with other family members and what I call "social" drugs.

Docs are trained a certain ways of thinking. That nearly ALL problems from from your childhood caregivers. All women are hysterical. And there is a magic pill for everything. These assumptions are not helpful in many cases.